Deglasser
by Coco-Minu
Summary: The end of the first week he fills a beer bottle with glitter because she said she liked sparkly things like nargles. Oneshot - RolfxLuna, NevillexLuna.


Summary: _The end of the first week he fills a beer bottle with glitter because she said she liked sparkly things like nargles._

Note: I don't imagine Rolf as ever being in the slightest bit ordinary.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Warning(s): Strong bad language, angst.

* * *

><p><strong>Deglasser<strong>

* * *

><p><em>i think of my days and know that i have changed<em>

* * *

><p>Rolf meets her on the train.<p>

Well, not so much meets her – _she is lonely and he finds himself feeling every pair of hungry eyes_ _searching her skin searching_ – but rather he is two rows down from her as she sits back straight, legs dangling in the air away from the floor like it's normal to be that tiny. The man next to her is not her lover and she's smiling anyway, not quite focused, a ring on his finger but not on hers.

She's just another scrap in a sea of lost girls and he doesn't care.

* * *

><p>She's out in London on a Friday and that's never a good time.<p>

It's not her scene, she has an Irish lilt to her voice as she speaks to a group of people he vaguely recognises and god he hates London. He hates how everyone chooses to cage themselves in a room for a couple of hours, and the strobe lights like the moon but harsh and ugly; and then her eyes catch his. There is vague recognition, and nothing.

"Stranger, feigning bravery."

She says, because her mother wasn't there to teach her to be scared of men like him; men with dark eyes the colour of burning wood and dust, the remnants of war and werewolf blood. He almost laughs at this, because he isn't damn afraid of anything. Not glory, not death, not this girl with the wide blank stare and dirty hair piled up something ridiculous on her head; and he refuses to ever let her scare him with petty little words like that.

"Stranger, pretending to feel loved."

Absent ring on the finger it should have been on. He looks at her and thinks how the nights are warm in summer, how she is the kind of girl who pretended to lead rebellions but when she leaves home she'll never get past the red phone box at the end of the street. How she'd never have that guy from the train who she was in love with, but she'd play pretend anyway.

"I do feel loved."

She says dreamily. He looks at her and smiles, razor-sharp canines glinting under the strobe lights and dares her to lie again. It's not so much recognising sadness as sensing it. He can smell the day old tears and ill-fitting makeup. Scarlet lips ready for little red to gobble up the wolf with.

"I'm Rolf."

He offers her an arm, and god she's wary – _warier than anyone should be with a war just over _– he senses it in her bones. He can hear the heartbeat, organs revolting against her ribcage, the dull swallowing in her throat as she mulls it over; and it's gone in an instant. She touches his arm carefully, pale skin making her like a ghost against his foreign tan but to hell with it. They're all foreigners here, in this world; the fun part is figuring out where to try and fit in best.

"Luna."

Ironic. But he can see it in her. The moon is something he so loves to hate, the thing that takes the most humanity from him. The thing that rolls his skin off in sheets and deforms him into a beast. Not that he resents the power. He loves the feeling of animal blood, the wild nights running through the trees but he'll be damned if he doesn't hurt someone eventually. Someone like her. But he'll never get close enough to do it, he tells himself; she'll wake up one day and he'll be gone. He never sticks around long enough to become a domesticated pet.

"Knew there was something special about you."

She laughs, tells him to fuck off; graciously takes his phone number an hour later anyway.

* * *

><p>She actually calls him, strangely enough.<p>

He's not expecting it in any way when he clocks that she's got magic too. That she isn't just Luna; she's Luna - _shitting_ - Lovegood, the girl who helped Harry Potter "save" the world. He doesn't figure it out from anything she says, but rather the fact that he sees her stupid face on an enchanted billboard at three am when she's called him and drops the phone. She always calls at the worst times too; when he's running through the empty streets of the South East with blood in his matted hair, when he's just got into a fight again. He isn't sure whether he finds it funny or not.

"Darling, never have I seen a smile that destroys me quite like that one."

He whispers down the phone as he stares up at her enlarged face when he reaches London Bridge, looking for tickets when he knows the last train is already gone. Passengers to nowhere still mill around the cab station though. He gives a predatory grin to them. Of course she doesn't know what he's on about. Never does. Then again, he doubts she knows what she's talking about half the time either, it's like she makes it all up as she goes along.

"Funny, I think I see you."

She murmurs but the buzzing guttural throat noise she makes when she's agitated is coming from near him too. She's standing next to the bus stops when he spots her, legs bare and white in the light of the half moon and hair spilt down her back something beautiful. She should know where she is. She doesn't look even remotely surprised when he runs over to her, waving thick arms like tree branches and looking bloody stupid while doing so. It's like she expects him to do silly things for her.

"I was wondering when you'd turn up again, love."

She smiles half-ruefully, half-genuine and shakes her head. Powerless, alone in the dark except for him. And oh how he loves it. He rubs his hands together, tries to ignore the completely abnormal way she ignores the dried blood making tangles in his already messy hair and ripped gloves. Blows some steam out into the cold night air. She is the first step to sadness and if he had a heart it'd break the useless organ. He refuses to admit she's special. She wanders in and out of his life like he's done to everyone else; and he isn't sure of that. In an odd way, he finds it easier like this.

"I always turn up someplace."

She says, almost as though she's an afterthought in a long line of people that mattered more. They were the story, the lifeblood and bonepulse. She's just the remnants of a cold morning coffee. It's only then, trying to avoid her eyes, that he notices that her feet are bare. It's not something he caught before, her standing so far away; but her nails are painted milky white like her namesake and he's pretty sure her toes are going blue.

"What about your shoes?"

What worries him more is how much he's beginning to care about this idiot. It almost scares him sometimes how he might love her in a way he doesn't love other people, this lonely girl in a sea of lost people who are just the same; but that's just an almost. His family had rendered him incapable when on the summer of his sixteenth birthday he turned into a monster, flushing their expectations of another Scamander genius down the drain along with any ties he ever had to them.

"I suppose they'll turn up someplace too."

She tells him not looking as though this is a particularly troublesome thing. The person she is now is no different to the person she was when he met her. Her sad look and resentment do him in so easily. He allows a little moan as she reaches out a hand to touch his softly, guilty by default. He pulls away, but reaches down to undo his laced up boots anyway. Leather, cost him a pretty penny too; but he can't bare that face on her. He hands her them without complaint.

"Take them."

He mumbles gruffly, too embarrassed to look at her stunned face. Some people stumbling across to find an all-night bus give him a funny look, and he supposes they look a strange pair, a bloody-haired man and a shoeless girl; but they can go shove it up their arses. Her eyes are like saucers when he finally can bring himself to stare back, lips slightly parted something glorious. She's not beautiful; she's far too silly and free spirited. Too busy torturing herself for not having the guy she loved. Too skinny to wear a dress like that and pull it off. But in this light, he can almost convince himself that he's doing a gentlemanly deed. His first for the best looking girl he's ever met. Even if he knows the very idea of such a thing is bullshit.

"This is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

He isn't sure what he thinks of her friends anymore.

* * *

><p>Rolf asks her to meet him for coffee.<p>

It's strange, in a way; he's never done this for someone before. Of course, neither of them means it in a way that'd mean he deemed her attractive at all; but rather it's just because she's stopped turning up on the streets at night. He supposes it's his good influence, and he should be grateful that she hasn't got herself into some sort of crazy shit already, but in a strange way he misses her. Summer nights are the longest, and they drag out even more without her there.

"Why do you lie to everyone?"

He asks. He used to dream his mother would kill him in some awful way when he was younger; but since that summer he changed he hasn't slept a full night. It's always fitful, and when he does sleep instead of lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, lately it's of her. She rolls her tongue over her lips idly, and he tries not to see the hurt in her eyes.

"Why not?"

She replies, and draws circles in his black Americano with cream as if she's only doing it to piss him off. Of course she isn't. It's her way of caring. She whispers she's going to leave then thank you very much, and even if it made him unhappy now he'd appreciate it in the end; and that his shoes are in the bag under the table and she hopes he'll appreciate the new polish she used on them. He does, funnily enough; it smells like mandarin oranges and her.

He's angry because he should have asked himself instead.

* * *

><p>He sees her in the night again, though.<p>

And he runs to her, like a common dog with his tail between his legs. He doesn't beg for forgiveness, doesn't need to; she knows she said too much. Knows that some things like her crumple-horned whatever-it-is aren't real, but wants to believe in them anyway because she never wants to grow up. This time it's Brick Lane, where he could get away with the boots and oversized fleeced leather jacket; get away with the tangled hair and unshaven face that gave him away. To him, it's the basic rules of surviving; to the people that hang around here trying to pretend they have hard lives because ugly is the new beautiful, it's fashion.

"You know about me, don't you?"

He says dull, tired. Most people never click, but she nods. Of course she does. Strangely, it feels like she's always known; like she isn't afraid because she's persuaded by the harsh German tone to his voice and his crooked nose and wild eyes. Stupid things to trust in, but still; she always handed herself out to be an epitome of faith. Normally by now they're horrified, running away screaming from a monster. Instead, she pulls him closer, clasps her arms around his waist like she'll never let go. He places her chin on his head, thinks himself lucky that she's batshit insane.

"Yes. And I know it makes you feel lonely too, but that's ok."

His mouth goes dry. He won't admit it. Loneliness is for spinsters, old ladies and pretty girls who could pull it off. Not that she's in any of those brackets, but hey; he'll let her be the exception to the rule as long as he isn't there with her.

"I'm not lonely. I choose to be alone."

He tells her, knowing that she's not hearing the words. Because she knows that no matter what he says, nobody ever chooses that. He is certain that love is just sundried chemicals; his impeccable intelligence tells him so. And still, any companionship he holds with this girl is only that. Proximity and phone numbers. Sheer luck, because she's always there when someone like that shouldn't even exist. Not in a world as cruel as this one.

He suddenly feels domesticated and pulls away.

* * *

><p>She's on the train again.<p>

With the same boy from before, and his heart sinks when he has two rings now and she still has none at all. And the kid is not like him at all. Leather and fur and wool scraps replaced by argyle professor sweaters and a dorky bow tie. So utterly different, in fact, that replacement is out of the question.

"Who's this guy, darling?"

He sits across from her this time, and the grateful smile of recognition makes his heart sink. This is why he cannot fit into her life like everyone else. Even though they aren't really there, he is. He's there between the margins as an afterthought, just like she's always been. He rolls his tongue and pushes it up against his teeth uncomfortably; vary aware that the neat kid is staring and most likely wondering where on earth they met.

"This is Neville, and Neville -"

Neville is a faithful looking boy, the professor type; all brown eyes and softness. Rolf is a wolf by blood and by nature; eyes darker than coal and as rough as anything. And for this harmlessness and for Luna having some sort of obvious attraction to this well-respected type, Rolf instantly decides that he hates this child.

"Rolf Scamander. I know who he is."

Neville_-the-prick_ says pleasantly enough, probably seen his picture somewhere. Maybe he's a wanted man nowadays or something like that. Maybe he's been in a newspaper or something. He pulls out a cigarette, smirks at Neville's affronted look that he'd smoke on a train. Luna giggles.

"So, what are we doing on the Southeastern service with the lovely Luna?"

Rolf asks brazen, typical of him really. He's been considering getting a ring through his eyebrow lately, and this kind of guy is the exact reason for it. The funny little reactions people make are always the best. Hell, he's sure Neville is a nice guy if he's used to someone like her; and he sure seems to know that Rolf isn't exactly human – _and doesn't resent him for it_ – but nice guys are so utterly boring that Rolf hasn't been able to stand them a day in his life.

"Off to platform nine and three quarters."

Neville answers before Luna can reply. So the pretty married boy has balls. Rolf grins, showing all of his sharp teeth. All the better to eat him with. He looks at her tight lipped look, something new for her. It's something he's never seen before. For him, she's only ever lived in dreamland. He takes a long draw from the black devil he's smoking, stamps it out on the train floor under his big skull crushing boots something beautiful.

"Tell me when you fall out of love with him. I'll be waiting."

He says. Doesn't know what possess him to do it. Sees he's next to London Bridge again and disappears in the crowd after he excuses himself to get off the train. That look she gives him makes him seethe and he doesn't even want the girl. But if she gave him that look instead, the look of belief like she thought he could do god damn anything – he swears that he could almost die for it.

Goes and gets his eyebrow pierced anyway so that he'll stop thinking about her.

* * *

><p>Rolf stops answering her calls.<p>

And here he thought he had all the answers. The end of the first week he fills a beer bottle with glitter because she said she liked sparkly things like nargles. Jokes to himself about working at St. Mungos so that he can keep her alive forever. Pretends to be asleep when people come knocking at his door for rent and crap like that. Immerses himself in his childhood dreams of looking after animals, reads books and more books by his grandfather about things that shouldn't exist. He bets she'd be the sort of girl to like unicorns best.

After a month he forces himself to move, opens the door and she's sitting in the hallway grinning.

* * *

><p>It seems like every Saturday since he's met her, but she's in his chair.<p>

The rotten old wood-backed one from study in Germany. It'd been an old antique and now it's a run down London apartment seating a girl who still has dreams. He'd thought himself a writer before her. Or a poet. Or something. Nobody was around to ask why he didn't get a paying job except the landlord, and he was prone to forgetting things in the flick of a wand or after a few shots of Cointreau. Cointreau was Rolf's favourite. The taste of orange reminded him of rainforests, although he'd never been to one.

"Did you ever write?"

She says, looking at the dusty papers on the floor. He offers her a cigarette, she declines. He rolls his eyes. Last time he wrote, it wasn't about home or the wild or anything really except her. Rolf looks petulantly at the biros piled on the floor, inkless, and sighs. He stopped really writing for her.

"Used to. Can't think of anything to say though, no words left."

What he does not have to say is how it's all her fault. She knows. She always knows. She does that with everyone, even him. To her credit, she doesn't comment on it. She tucks her head into her knees and hides her smile but he can still see it there. Funny one, Luna is. Nobody else would get this close. Fuck, nobody else would have him. He's like an ugly sunburn that way.

"You know, I don't love Neville. Never did, really. But I think I might love you."

She inputs, offbeat as always. He can't see her face for the expression but he can guess it's pretty. And he guesses this is what he wanted. It's not love if he doesn't want it to be, and he doesn't even know her favourite colour yet but hell. She's something to say it without the tears everyone else said it with. He breathes in his cigarette smoke, long and deep. Stings his eyes.

"You love everyone, Luna."

He answers. Because she does. It'd be impossible for Luna's job to be anything but making people happy. He takes a final long drag. Lavish. That'd been what his parents had called him. If only they could see her now. He smirks at the thought. He doesn't even know if they're dead yet. The nastiness drops. He frowns and stamps the cigarette out on the battered carpet.

"Yeah, but you're special."

She says proudly, like he's a kid she's giving his first broomstick or something. But looking up at the sky with her would give him the expectation of seeing God in the clouds. She fills him with wonder, expectations; things he's stopped having years ago. Truth be told, it fucking terrifies him. And yet she is here, she's always here and in a way; he knows where she belongs is with him.

"You too. How do you feel about blast-ended manticores?"

She falls out of the chair laughing. Of course she'd find them sweet.

* * *

><p>Rolf knows he loves her.<p>

The thing is, he gets scared of human contact in a way. She's been in his apartment for a week, making really bad scrambled eggs that he pretends are delicious and he's pretty sure she's been cleaning as well. It's annoying because she wastes his eggs, but he loves coming home to a bed that isn't covered in blood that isn't his. His hair still gets tangled, but she sits in that old chair and brushes them through with her fingers. Progress dictates that he doesn't snap at her for it.

"Aren't you scared I'll hurt you? That I hurt people?"

He wonders aloud when he comes home at three am on the eight day smelling of sweat and dirt after he sees her looking miserable for it. She'll be better off if she closes her eyes and pretends that he doesn't exist.

"No. I'm scared you won't come back."

She's tugging the world from under his feet at a centimetre per minute. Now he tips his chin up, connect his nose to her chin in some sort of connective gesture he supposes she'll understand more than he ever will.

"I'll only cause you pain, Lovegood."

He warns her, because he damn well will – she'll wake up and realise being with a werewolf is something to be ashamed of one day. She'll find out that living in between the lines of a normal existence is an ugly thing to do. By coincidence she wants to be a zoologist just like him, and he knows he'll only end up screwing that up as well. Even after these months of compiling notes in a crappy apartment only a student could bare, his dreams are still only dreams.

"I believe in you."

For the first time in ten years, Rolf forgets his tough guy act and cries before bed like a child.

* * *

><p>He's dreaming of being alone in the dark, just how he likes it.<p>

"I love you."

But he's not. She's ruined that for him. He tells her this even though he can only feel her breathing against his collarbone; let alone see her pale skin and the shirt she's stolen – _borrowed_ – from him to sleep in. It used to be that pills suppressed his emotions, that his mother was happy to have such a pretty boy for a son; and now he's fresh and dry, not a pretty boy ever again, but he'd try if it pleased this silly little girl. He closes his eyes. He still doesn't even know her.

"You don't love anyone."

She mumbles, voice heavy with sleep, and curls her body against his back like a piece of broken wire looking for electric connections in the empty space. And she's right, he doesn't love anyone. Except her. There's always going to be her. He falters. Stumbles and grasps something true.

"I'd marry you if you'd have me."

The next morning she laughs with sleepy eyes and asks when he's getting her a ring.

* * *

><p>He gets on the train with her and kisses her.<p>

"Hey stranger, let's get married today."

She tastes like the glow of the moon, just as he'd always dreamed she would. She'll spend evenings helping him organise his stupid notes, pulling all of his dreams out of boxes. She'll ignore his mother for being a bitter old bitch and accept his father on the old man's deathbed. And not for one second will she ever stop to look in his dark eyes like weeks old cigarette ash and find them as ugly as he does.

"You couldn't stand being married."

She's probably right, of course, but he won't mind that it's a young and foolish thing to do as long as it will be with her.

* * *

><p>They do get married, in the winter of the next year.<p>

She tells him she hates summer weddings because everyone has one. And it's not really a marriage, they elope; and the person to serve as witness is - _strangely enough_ – Ginny Weasley, although her face tells Rolf she very much does not approve of them doing such a thing thank you very much, if only because nobody else is there to see it. And when Luna says she'll have him forever and gets sternly told off by the minister for not saying "I do", all he can manage is laughter. He looks at her and she's not a lost girl anymore, not a strange kid from the train; she's Luna Scamander. She fills the space the rest of the world left behind with her love for him.

Finally, Rolf is happy with his lot in life: the ugly world is turning beautiful because she is in it.

* * *

><p>Something happy. Because I never write things that end happy, and I should. Most people will probably ask why I think Rolf is a werewolf; and I just think that anyone Luna Lovegood could adore so much would have to be a creature and just as boggling as she is. I finished this last year really, but I want to add this anyway –<p>

#3 songs for writing this:

Equestrian – **U.S. Royalty**

Sylvia – **The Antlers**

Michicant – **Bon Iver**

Constructive criticism & reviews much appreciated.


End file.
